Wednesday, January 27, 2010

The baker carefully pulling the baked bread out of the oven with tongs

As I mentioned in my last post, I just returned from 2 weeks in Israel. I traveled all over the country and took over a thousand photos and an hour and a half of video on my HD Flip Mino. Much of the footage is of my meals, or of restaurants or markets. I'm a little obsessed with food. And the food of Israel is delicious and amazing.

On my very last day in Israel, my friend Joel, who moved to Jerusalem about 10 months ago, took me to a bakery in Jerusalem just outside the shuk (outdoor market). It was my birthday. Joel thought I'd get a kick out of the unusual way this bakery bakes its bread. He was right. I was fascinated by the bizarre oven pits and baking method. You stretch out the bread dough on what looks like a round pillow cushion, then carefully hold the edge of this cushion with your hand, stick your arm in the oven, and slap the cushion against the oven wall so that the dough sticks to the wall. It bakes for 3 minutes.

The baker saw how interested I was in what he was doing, and kindly invited me into the kitchen. He showed me the whole process, then showed me the scars on his arm from several burns, and then asked me to try my hand at slapping dough into the oven. Um, in that order. Let me repeat that. First he shows me his battle wounds, then says it's my turn. Suffice it to say, I was scared to death.

Without further ado, here's my 5 minute video of bread baking in a Jerusalem bakery. Enjoy!

About Marni

I’ve always loved baking. I come from a family of amazing bakers going back many generations. And I have two large bookcases in my living room, both of them filled only with my 1000 cookbooks. I even considered it as a career and almost attended pastry school in San Francisco after college. But I went the route of digital marketing and got a Masters in Communication Management from the Annenberg School for Communication at USC. So baking is just a hobby. But I take hobbies seriously! And getting to moonlight as a baker is a great thing. I’m very happy.